Establishing an area for homeless people in Central Maui to park overnight without risk of citations and sweeps is slowly making progress through the Maui County Council, but not without some pushback from the community.
Bill 133 would create a six-month pilot program that would allow homeless individuals to keep their cars on county land overnight. It would also amend a previous county ordinance that allowed for a safe parking pilot project to be established by lifting certain requirements, including the need for a valid driver’s license, vehicle registration and safety check.
There was overwhelming support for the intent of the bill at a Maui Council meeting on Friday, but some testifiers worry that the program is being rushed without enough planning.
Faith Chase, a Maui resident and former commissioner on the county's Commission on Healing Solutions for Homelessness, said the Council needs to give more time for proper discussion with the communities that the program will impact.
"There has been no meaningful consultation with the very community that this so-called safe parking lot is intended to serve," Chase said. "We've said this so many times: a safe parking lot initiative cannot be designed effectively by making decisions about people without engaging those people themselves. We should be asking why a project intended to support some of those most vulnerable residents is being planned with such minimal provisions."
At the previous council's Water Authority, Social Services and Parks Committee hearing early last week, Maui Department of Human Concerns Director Maggie Willis said the county was preparing a temporary site that could serve unhoused individuals who are staying along Pūlehu Road. She said it would be able to hold about 50 people.
The site is expected to have portable toilets, hand-washing stations, potable water, lighting and around the clock private security with planned trauma-informed and cultural competency training.
Other testifiers also raised issues with the chosen location, describing it as a "dust bowl" in the middle of nowhere.
Council members acknowledged that there is still work to do with the technicalities within the bill, but they said that the program needs to start for any change to be seen.
"You just try to solve a few problems at a time, and not try to satisfy everyone because you won't be able to," Council Chair Alice Lee said. "The best thing anybody can do is get this off the ground and then start putting in the special things people are asking for. That's the best way."
The bill passed through the Maui County Council and will be sent to Mayor Richard Bissen next.
